I have Win8 on my desktop, where a 120G SSD is used to run windows and some select applications, while I have a 2TB HDD to provide basic file storage and where possible, install applications instead of on the SSD.

I want to install Ubuntu on a new partition of the HDD (I allocated 300GB, with 5GB swap file).

I've used a USB to install the OS, which seemed to have done the job. However, after prompting for a restart, I can no longer boot to ubuntu.

During instillation I was confused about where to install the "boot loader instillation". I ended up selecting "/dev/stb" because I figured I would be able to boot with BIOS by selecting the HDD drive as a priority over the SSD.

The bootloader is a large part of where I think I went wrong.

My partition system looked something like this:

/dev/sta  ...               //SSD ~120 GB
/dev/sta1 NTFS (350 MB)     //Win8System
/dev/sta2 NTFS (118 GB)     //Win8C-Drive

/dev/stb ...                //HDD ~2TB
/dev/stb1 NTFS (1563 GB)    //FileStorage
/dev/stb5 Free Space (300 GB)    //Space I want to use for Linux

(NOTE: Created two partitions from the 300GB, ~5GB and 295GB. stb5,stb6.)

It'd be great if I could get an explanation of what drive you'd select for the boot loader and why, and what selections won't work with regards to the Boot Loader Instillation. I think I understand what Grub is, but I have no idea on how to use it, or play around with it.

I seem to be able to get back into OS from my usb, however I believe it's just showing me a preview/trial of Ubuntu (ie, can't access any of the system NTFS drives). Note, if I try to install from the USB again, it will recognize that a version of Ubuntu 13.10 exists on the system.

Apologies in advance, have used windows all my life, don't really know to much about Linux at all. Did have a brief skim over some similar questions, didn't find anything too useful. - Where to install bootloader when installing Ubuntu as secondary OS? - ubuntu 12.10 dual boot with windows 8 on two hdds - Dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu on two SSDs with UEFI